Street Fight Daily: 01.05.12

Street Fight Daily: 01.05.12

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups.

Groupon Merchant Center Now Shows If Customers Love or Hate Your Deals (TechCrunch)
To combat the lack of transparency around customer satisfaction with daily deals, Groupon yesterday launched a new version of its Merchant Center. It includes the real-time percentage of deal customers who would recommend the business to a friend, plus their comments.

Groupon’s Drop Below IPO Price Reflects Daily-Deal Risks (Bloomberg BusinessWeek)
Groupon Inc.’s shares, which have fallen below the company’s initial public offering price, show that both merchants and investors are having second thoughts about the nascent daily-deal industry. About half the businesses that have offered an online deal- of-the-day in the past aren’t planning to do so again in the next six months, according to a survey published on Jan. 2.

PayPal: Mobile Payments and Location-based Offers Go Hand-in-Hand (GigaOm)
PayPal is gearing up to launch an in-store payment system that will compete with Google Wallet, Isis, Square and others. But the company is also looking to engage consumers well before they set foot in a store. Walt Doyle, the CEO of WHERE, which was acquired by PayPal last year, said that will be a key battleground in mobile payments, pulling in consumers off the street.

2012 – A Big Year for Local Television (TVB)
One of the most important areas that will invigorate Local Broadcast Television is likely to come from a somewhat unexpected place: Mobile. Smartphones, tablets, and their portable brethren all are ever-present consumer tools that will help to lead the local media revolution.

The Best Reasons to Use Foursquare (Business Insider)
Ellis Hamburger: The more friends I make that are using the service, the more fun it is to use. But I’ve also learned more about the tools inside Foursquare that make it more relevant than Yelp and as timely as Twitter.

Schedulicity’s Dave Galvan: Scheduling is a Disruptive Feature (Local Onliner)
How big can SMB scheduling be? And how universal across SMB categories? Those are the questions posed by the addition of scheduling to Groupon (Groupon Scheduler) and Merchant Circle, as well as the rise of several independent scheduling sites, such as Full Slate, MaxiPage, Appointy and Genbook. Another contender is Schedulicity, a scheduling pioneer that is now two years old and has 15,000 customers.